Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 6

PORTOBELLO
into a small town. About the beginning of the century
the beauty of the beach, the fineness of its sands, and
its general eligibility as a bathing-place, began to draw
the attention of the citizens of Edinburgh ; and thence-
forth many neat dwelling-houses and numerous villas
arose for the accommodation of summer visitors, con-
verting the town into a fashionable watering-place.
Great as has been the growth of Portobello, that growth
is by no means complete, the wide projected extensions
of 1876 to the E of Joppa and the S of the railway being
still only partly finished, going on, or not even yet
begun. In its existing or compact condition the town
forms a belt along the firth 7 furlongs in length by from
250 yards to i mile in breadth. The principal street
extends from NW to SE along the Edinburgh and
Berwick highroad, and bears over its NW half the name
of High Street. The Figgate Burn intersects the town near
its north-western end ; the only parts of the burgh on the
Leith side of the stream being mainly occupied by brick
and bottle works. The High Street sends off at brief
intervals, and generally at right angles, 12 or 13 alleys
and streets to the beach. Those to the NW" are narrow,
and belong to the early periods of the town's existence ;
but those in the middle district, and towards the SE,
increase in elegance as the distance recedes from the
burn. The principal — mentioning them in regular
order — bear the names of Tower, Bath, Regent, Welling-
ton, Melville, Pitt, John, James, and Hamilton Streets.
The centre of the town, or what in old times would have
been called the Cross, is a point at which Bath Street
goes 330 yards north-eastward to the sea, and a spacious
beautiful street, called Brighton Place, 400 yards south-
westward to the station — Brighton Place being flanked
by Brighton and Lee Crescents. So formidable an array
of street lines, disposed over so great a space, would
seem to indicate no small magnitude of town, and a very
considerable amount of population. But much of its
area is open ground, much is occupied by garden-plots
or villa enclosures, and much is rather a sprinkling of
houses separately produced by individual taste or caprice,
than a collection of edifices upon any preconcerted plan.
Yet most of the newer parts are comparatively regular
both in their street lines and in their houses, and pro-
mise to combine with future extensions to render Porto-
bello one of the neatest, or even one of'the most elegant
of second-rate provincial towns in Great Britain. The
extensive brick-work which figured so prominently in
the origination of the town has contributed much to
disfigure it by tempting the construction of many of the
houses with brick. But, over by much the greater
part of the area, the building material is the same
beautiful light-coloured sandstone which gives so per-
vading a charm to the architecture of the metropolis ;
and, as the brick edifices decay, it will probably be used
for the houses which succeed them, and be allowed the
universal adoption it deserves.
The curious Tower which overlooks the beach at the foot
of Tower Street is a fantastic pile, built by the eccentric
Mr Cunningham, who was one of the earliest subfeuars
under Mr Jamieson. Antique carved stones appear in
the cornices and the windows, and are alleged to have
belonged partly to the Cross of Edinburgh, and partly
to the dilapidated ecclesiastical piles of St Andrews.
An excellent suite of hot and cold salt-water baths was
erected in 1S06 at a cost of £4000, between the foot
of Bath Street and that of Regent Street. An edifice at
the head of Bath Street was once an assembly-room, but
is now an inn. A neat town-hall, in a mixed style of
French and Flemish, was built in 1862-63 by a limited
liability company at a cost of £3000, on the S side of
the High Street, to the E of Brighton Place. To the
W, on the opposite side of the High Street, are the fine
new Municipal Buildings, Scottish Baronial in style,
erected in 1878 at a cost of £7000, from designs by
Messrs R. Paterson & Son. A principal feature is a
three-dialled clock tower, surmounted by a flagstaff ; and
the town-hall also has its public clock. The fine level
sands, 230 yards broad at low-water, on a Saturday
afternoon of summer present an animated scene, with
PORTOBELLO
the ponies and donkeys, the pleasure boats and bathing-
coaches, the throng of holiday-makers, and what not
else besides. They are skirted by a smooth esplanade
(1860), 1420 yards long, or a little over J mile, midway on
which, at the foot of Wellington Street, is the Prince
of Wales's Drinking Fountain. In 1870-71 a promenade
pier was constructed by a joint-stock company near the
foot of Bath Street, at a cost of £7000. It extends
1250 feet into the sea, and is 22 feet broad, or 60 at the
head, which is sin-mounted by a restaurant and an obser-
vatory. The pier is a calling place for excursion steamers,
and serves not only for promenade concerts, but also for
boating and (up to 9 a. m. ) for swimming.
The view from the pier-head is one of singular beauty
and interest — Inchkeith to the N, and the winding
shores of Fife ; to the NE, North Berwick Law and a
peep of the Bass ; to the E, Aberlady Bay, Prestonpans,
Musselburgh, and the spire of Inveresk ; to the S, the
woods of Niddrie, Craigmillar Castle, and the Pentland
Hills ; and to the W, Arthur's Seat and a glimpse of
Edinburgh. See these burnished by setting sun, or
silvered by summer moon, and think of their many
memories — the Pentlands, or ' lands of the Picts, ' and
Rullion Green ; Inveresk, with its Roman remains ;
Arthur's Seat, named after the ' Blameless King, ' and
Edinburgh, after Eadwiue of Northumbria ; Kinghorn
yonder, where King Alexander met his doom ; Wilkie's
' ain blue Lomonds ; ' the battlefields of Pinkie and
Prestonpans ; Craigmillar, where Queen Mary wept ;
and Carterry Hill, where she resigned her crown. Nay,
on these very sands Prince Charlie arrayed his forces on
the eve of the march to Derby ; George IV. held a grand
review; and Scott composed the Flodden canto of
Marmion, walking his black horse within the beating
of the surge, or going off as if at the charge, with the
spray dashing about him.* At Shrub Mount, Porto-
bello, Hugh 'Miller (1S02-56) died by his own hand;
and Portobello has been the birthplace or residence of
two or three other men of mark — David Laing, LL. D.
(1790-1878), antiquary ; Prof. Robert Jameson (1774-
1854), mineralogist; and Samuel Brown, M.D. (1817-57),
chemist and author.
The quoad sacra parish church, in Melville Street, is
a plain edifice, with a clock cupola, erected in 1810 as a
chapel of ease at a cost of £2650, enlarged in 1815 and
1878, and containing 966 sittings. The parish was con-
stituted by the General Assembly in 1834. The Free
church, in Hamilton Terrace, Joppa, was built in 1875-
77, at a cost of £9000, from designs by Mr John Honey-
man, and is a really striking edifice in the Early Deco-
rated style of the close of the 13th century, its only
defect being a certain thinness. It consists of an aisled
nave, with 660 sittings and traceried stained-glass win-
dows, and of a tower and spire 170 feet high, with a
deep-toned bell of 36 cwt. The Windsor Place U.P.
church, built in 1879-80, at a cost of £8500, from de-
signs by Messrs Stewart & Menzies, is a less successful
Gothic structure, consisting of nave and transepts, with
760 sittings and a NW tower and spire 130 feet high.
The Regent Street U.P. church is a very plain but
commodious building, reconstructed in 1880 from a pre-
vious church. St Mark's Episcopal Church, consecrated
in 1828, is an ugly unecclesiastical building, with a heavy
Grecian portico, a stained-glass window, and 400 sit-
tings. St John's Roman Catholic church (1835 ; enlarged
1878 ; 400 sittings), in Brighton Place, is plain but neat ;
and the same may be said of the Congregational church
in Wellington Street. An Established congregation
also worships in the old Town-hall. A beautiful ceme-
tery, nearly 1 J mile SE of the centre of the town, and 4
acres in extent, was laid out in 1 876-77. The new Board
School, on the Niddrie road, a little beyond the station,
* On one occasion Sir Archibald Allison, while a member of the
Yeomanry Cavalry, after a six hours' drill on Portobello sands,
dined, drove 21 miles to a ball, danced ail night, drove back,
bathed in the sea, and went to another six hours' drill, ' without
either being in bed or experiencing the least fatigue.' His right-
hand man in the front rank during this mimic war was Lockhart,
Sir Walter's son-in-law.
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